On Monday, 13 July 2026 18:20:14 AEST Simon McVittie wrote: > On Mon, 13 Jul 2026 at 16:58:28 +1000, Russell Coker wrote: > >The package selinux-utils is depended on by selinux-policy-default, so it > >will be dragged in by every functional SE Linux system > > On https://salsa.debian.org/selinux-team/libselinux/-/merge_requests/14, > Adrian argued that "On an embedded system one does often provision > policy through other means" (presumably meaning that such systems would > not necessarily have selinux-policy-default installed). Is that a > use-case that is supported by the SE Linux team in Debian?
That's not something we support in Debian. For almost everything in Debian someone could theoretically install their own non-packaged replacement to save some space and we would give them the freedom to do so on their own without compromising our work. I am happy to make things easier for people who want a Frankenstein system, but not if that means making things worse for people who do things the recommended way. > If yes, is there a package that is smaller than selinux-policy-default, > but *does* need to be pulled in by every functional SE Linux system? I'm > hoping that one of selinux-basics, policycoreutils or selinux-utils has > that role. The selinux-basics and policycoreutils packages have depended on selinux-utils for a long time. The selinux-basics package is a convenience package that could be skipped if someone wants to keep things small, but policycoreutils is really needed for any SE Linux system. > If all working SE Linux systems will have one of those packages, then > the same reasoning says that the Recommends isn't necessary. Yes. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
